“Summer bodies are made in the spring.” You have rocked Pure Barre all spring to get ready for your amazing summer vacation. Check out our tips to maintain your healthy lifestyle while traveling below:

When it comes to food, today’s consumers want it all — healthy, fresh dishes that don’t sacrifice on flavor. Luckily, diners’ knowledge and palates are expanding along with their demands, making it easier than ever for chefs to fill this tall order.

As a growing slice of consumers look for fast, affordable, and quality meals, the quick-service industry is uniquely positioned to fill such a need. At the same time, widespread calls to make fast food healthier have put some chains at a crossroads where they grapple to improve quality without sacrificing a brand identity designed around value.

As health-conscious Americans take a greater interest in the foods they consume, chefs and restaurateurs are seeking to address this trend by devising more nutritious menu selections that meet the demands of their customers.

No one wants to come home from vacation packing extra pounds in addition to great souvenirs and fond memories. Yet even the most dedicated, healthy eater can find it difficult to maintain good dietary habits while traveling.

Making healthy choices while dining out can be challenging. That’s why Basefit, a Cambia Health Solutions company that offers readiness and resilience solutions to the military and commercial organizations, and Healthy Dining, the leader in restaurant nutrition services and technologies, have been awarded federal funding to develop a mobile text-based service to help.

My Fit Foods, a leading producer and retailer of freshly prepared, nutritionally balanced, flavorful meals, today announced its partnership with Healthy Dining, a team of culinary dietitians, restaurant nutrition experts and creators of HealthyDiningFinder.com.

Little did Anita Jones-Mueller know that when she was 10 years old and helping her dieting father count calories that one day the wife of the president of the United States would choose her as one of five "crusaders who are working wonders to make an impact on giant barriers facing this generation of children."

As the restaurant industry caters to the increasingly health-conscious consumer, tweaking menu items to reduce calories and promote super foods, a company in San Diego is making it easier to find the closest and healthiest spot for dinner.

Stick to healthy eating while dining out, as founder of Healthy Dining Finder's Anita Jones-Mueller with some healthy restaurant alternatives. Healthy Dining Finder has been making restaurant dining a healthier choice in San Diego and across the nation since 1991. Her recent feature in MORE magazine highlights the positive changes in the restaurant industry.

There is a San Diego connection to First Lady Michelle Obama’s much publicized stint as guest editor of More magazine. Appearing in the Obama-edited July-August issue, which hits newsstands today, is Anita Jones-Mueller. The president of San Diego-based Healthy Dining launched her company more than 20 years ago, in part, to help consumers find dietitian-approved dishes in restaurants.

Time is a precious resource, and lack of it can often lead families to skip wholesome meals shared at the dinner table. Restaurants are a natural pick for supporting busy schedules, and still offer the opportunity to enjoy some special time together without having to fight about who does the dishes! And as a member of the Healthy Weight Commitment Foundation, we are big advocates for families spending time together.

Eating healthy and menu labeling are big topics at this year’s National Restaurant Association (NRA) Show, and Healthy Dining, the California-based company that has been at the forefront of restaurant nutrition for more than two decades, will be there to guide restaurants through the new menu labeling regulations.

There are healthy food options that don't include salad. Chris Neal, the Master Griller from BD’s Mongolian Grill in 7 Action News in Detroit to share one of them, a meal featured on HealthyDiningFinder.com.

Known for offering the largest selection of certified organic fruits and vegetables in Orange County, California, Mother’s Market & Kitchen announced that it is partnering with Healthy Dining. Healthy Dining, a dietitian-led program, provides eaters with digital tools and resources to find the best restaurant choices for their dietary goals and healthy lifestyles. RDBA chatted with Healthy Dining’s Nicole Ring, R.D. to find out more about the program at Mother’s Market.

Restaurants account for up to one out of every four calories we eat on any given day. With restaurants responsible for such a large chunk of our daily intake, many welcome the Food and Drug Administration’s new rules requiring calories on menus. The bad news is that the new regulations don’t go into effect until much later this year (by December 2015). Besides, nutrition is about more than just calories.

Even though I have been a health nut for most of my life, fascinated with the power of food and its effects on optimal health and well-being, and even though I had a master’s degree in public health and nutrition, and even though I was working with a few hundred restaurants in Southern California, helping them offer accurate calorie and nutritional information for a selection of their menu items, and even though my company’s “Healthy Dining” books were flying off the shelves at local grocery and book stores, I still didn’t believe menu labeling would — or could — happen.

The FDA has unveiled national calorie labeling rules. The new rules will affect everything from restaurants to movie theatres and alcohol. Joining Ernie and Marilyn on the newsline to talk more about it is Anita Jones-Mueller, President of Healthy Dining.

The Food and Drug Administration has finally released the menu labeling rules and regulations that restaurants with 20 or more locations will be required to follow starting at the end of 2015. While the long-awaited rulebook lays out what information restaurants and other foodservice locations will need to display, it also raises many questions about how operators will obtain correct nutrition information for all their offerings and how they will include these numbers on menus. SmartBrief interviewed Anita Jones-Mueller, president and CEO of Healthy Dining, about what operators need to know about the new rules.

The government has released new rules requiring businesses from restaurants to movie theaters to post calorie counts of their food. California has required that for a few years now. But NBC 7 San Diego's Consumer Bob says this goes even further than the California rules.

It’s an oft-cited statistic: One in four Americans eats at a fast-food establishment each day—that’s nearly 79 million consumers, considering the latest national population data from the U.S. Census Bureau. And depending on one’s definition of “fast food,” that number could edge higher for the broader limited-service restaurant industry, which also includes fast casuals.

Food News Media, publisher of QSR and FSR magazines, has announced the winners of the inaugural HALO Awards, which honor restaurant chains that have made meaningful contributions to a healthy, active lifestyle for consumers.

Dining out, while frequently born out of necessity, is also an opportunity to splurge, be it grabbing an order of fries and a cheeseburger or a supping on a hefty Porterhouse steak and a side of au gratin potatoes. But those trips to the drive-through or an elegant sit-down restaurant don’t have to turn into an artery-clogging outing.

Anita Jones-Mueller, president of Healthy Dining, stands at Casa Sol Y Mar Restaurant in Carmel Valley on Thursday in San Diego, California. The restaurant offers her company's Healthy Dining Choices on their menu. That’s the gospel according to Anita Jones-Mueller, who began proselytizing about the virtues of consuming lean proteins, fruits and vegetables when eating out, long before juicing, vegan lifestyles and the paleo diet became fashionable.

It’s been four years since President Obama decreed, through the Affordable Care Act, that restaurants with 20 or more units list caloric information for standard menu items. The Food and Drug Administration still is finalizing the rules, but restaurants will have to contend with them any day now. How do you fit hefty menu analyses that can stretch over hundreds of SKUs into the budget. We asked several operators, who already have gone through the process to share what worked—and didn’t work—for them.

Sodium reduction is a hot topic in the foodservice industry as manufacturers and restaurateurs look for ways to cut sodium without sacrificing flavor or shelf-life. SmartBrief spoke with Anita Jones-Mueller, president and chief executive officer of Healthy Dining about the company’s latest research on sodium reduction and how restaurants can make menus healthier while keeping customers satisfied.

The California Table Grape Commission is planning to make the most of a new partnership with Healthy Dining, an organization that aims to facilitate healthier menus in restaurants. Adding grapes to the menu is in step with that mission, said Jane Lytle, marketing director of the Fresno-based commission. “Partnering with Healthy Dining will increase the exposure of Grapes from California among those restaurants actively seeking and ready to implement healthy solutions,” she said.

As restaurants nationwide will soon face FDA pressure to reduce sodium levels, as announced by the federal agency last week, Healthy Dining president and founder, Anita Jones-Mueller, praises the many Healthy Dining restaurants that already participate in the exclusive Healthy Dining Sodium Savvy program.

In this episode of 15 Minutes to Wellness, Dr. Michael Mantell chats with Anita Jones-Mueller, president and founder of Healthy Dining. Jones-Mueller and her team of Healthy Dining registered dietitians are actively creating a healthier America - in a delicious way.

Gluten-free, organic, all natural, low sodium. They’re the familiar buzzwords that have come to define a growing movement among consumers for healthier menu choices when dining out. Like it or not, food industry experts say restaurateurs can’t ignore an increasingly savvy segment of diners who are expecting better-for-you options on restaurant menus.

The Food and Drug Administration released proposed regulations for menu labeling in 2011, and final rules are anticipated later this year, Dan Roehl, NRA’s vice president of government relations, said during a menu labeling panel at the NRA show Saturday. Roehl and his fellow panelists — Healthy Dining Culinary Dietician Rachel Rothman and Darden Health & Wellness Director Cheryl Dolven — shared tips and best practices for restaurant operators who will need to add nutrition information to their menus.

With summer finally here, many will take the opportunity to spend more quality time with family, and dining out in restaurants is a perfect way to spend that time together. In an effort to meet the growing demand among consumers for more healthful menu options, a number of restaurants - in hometowns across America and at various vacation destinations - are offering more nutritious and great-tasting menu options for kids.

For some people, half of what we spend on food is often spent eating out. We all know eating out can be tough on a diet. Yet there are free apps and websites to help shift the balance of power in your favor by connecting you with healthier eating choices -- no matter where you are.

You can eat out and eat heart-healthy, too. Lots of restaurants these days offer meals that are lower in fat, calories and sodium. But the very same restaurants also serve food extremely high in calories and salt. So it’s mainly up to you to decipher the best choices.

Travelers are relying on an ever-growing number of websites and apps to identify healthy dining options. These include the Food Tripping app, which provides alternatives to fast food at restaurants, juice stores, farmers’ markets and elsewhere; HealthyOut, an app that lets users find dishes at local restaurants that meet their dietary needs; and HealthyDiningFinder.com, a website where registered dietitians and other nutrition professionals identify restaurant menu items that incorporate lean and high-nutrient ingredients.

Serious concerns about childhood obesity in the United States have prompted chefs and restaurateurs to take a closer look at the nutritional value of their children's offerings and make some long-needed adjustments by emphasizing more fresh fruit and vegetables, grains and lean proteins.

Lighter menu offerings at restaurants long ago moved from being a nice option for health-conscious customers to being the expectation of a sizeable chunk of the population. Increased consumer demand for more nutritious dining choices has sparked an industry-wide movement roward health-focused menu development (page 36).

As a former corporate climber and road warrior, I took an average of 75 flights per year for my job in the capital markets. While I love to travel, the glamour of business travel soon wore off. Eventually I burned out and quit my job. But in every tough time, there is usually a silver lining (and often a business idea)! For me, it was the vision of creating a unique platform for women business travelers to access the best travel products, info and services to promote healthier travel.

The National Restaurant Association announced today the winners of the second annual Kids LiveWell Recipe Challenge, an initiative showcasing restaurants' culinary ingenuity for creating healthful menu options for children. Sponsored by founding partner McCormick For Chefs® , the Food Away From Home business of McCormick & Company, and Healthy Dining's team of registered dietitians, the Challenge recognizes delicious and nutritious recipes from children's menus at restaurants and foodservice establishments nationwide.

Fast food gets a bad rap. The industry is actively cutting back on calories, sodium, trans fats, high fructose corn syrup, and other ingredient components that are detrimental to nutrition, but consumers and watchdogs alike are still quick to point fingers when the nation’s health woes come under debate.

In February, a new report was released that showed a staggering 43-percent drop in the obesity rates of 2-to-5 year olds. The report, led by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and originally published in the Journal of the American Medical Association, cited a number of factors for the downward trend.

Today, Healthy Dining and several of Healthy Dining’s restaurant partners will join the Whole Grain Council’s annual Whole Grain Sampling Day (WGSD). Along with the participating restaurants, a medley of other foodservice entities including grocery stores, schools, workplaces and universities will also be participating nationwide.

Healthy Dining works to inspire chefs to create healthier options for consumers and help diners find meals that fit into a healthy lifestyle. Last fall, the initiative’s dining and nutrition guide, Healthy Dining Finder.com, launched a mobile site featuring 4,000 menu items served at more than 60,000 participating restaurants to make it even easier for consumers to find healthy options on the go. I interviewed Healthy Dining’s founder Anita Jones-Mueller about how technology is impacting the restaurant industry and inspiring more consumers to turn to mobile devices for help maintaining a healthy diet.

Anita Jones-Mueller, President and founder of Healthy Dining reveals great tasting Healthy Dining menu options in Austin, Texas on Fox 7. A discussion of healthy ingredients found in dietian-recommended, Healthy Dining choices featured on HealthyDiningFinder.com. Menu choices that feature lean proteins, fruits, vegetables, whole grains and unsaturated fats, and the nutrients our bodies need to be at their best.

On Wednesday, April 2, 2014, Healthy Dining and several of Healthy Dining’s restaurant partners will join the Whole Grain Council’s annual Whole Grain Sampling Day (WGSD). Along with the participating restaurants, a medley of other foodservice entities including grocery stores, schools, workplaces and universities will also be participating.

In celebration of National Nutrition Month, the National Restaurant Association (NRA) announced that its first-of-its-kind Kids LiveWell initiative has grown to 42,000 restaurant locations nationwide. The voluntary program, which provides a growing selection of healthful children’s menu choices in every state, now counts more than 145 restaurant brands as participants.

In celebration of National Nutrition Month, the National Restaurant Association announced its Kids LiveWell initiative has grown to 42,000 restaurant locations nationwide.The voluntary program, which provides a growing selection of healthful children’s menu choices in every state, now counts more than 145 restaurant brands as participants.

The Mediterranean diet continues to grow in popularity, and restaurants have the opportunity to capitalize on the trend.

Although termed a “diet,” it is more an eating style, with an emphasis on healthful high antioxidant-, fiber-rich ingredients such as fresh fruits, vegetables, legumes and whole grains, and healthier fats derived from olive oil, nuts, and seafood. Not only are consumers driven toward this flavorful and freshly prepared cuisine, but growing research on its numerous health benefits has given it precedence in the scientific community, as well.

If you're not careful, dining out can be a recipe for weight-loss disaster. In fact, studies have shown that people who dine out tend to eat 500 more calories than they would if they ate at home. But that's not to say you should never enjoy another restaurant meal! Here are 7 easy ways to keep yourself on track at restaurants.

There is a lot of noise in the nutrition world. As consumer demand continues to grow for healthier options, nutrition and allergen information, and locally sourced, higher quality ingredients, operators are paying attention. But they are confused, too. Which trends and diets are the right ones to follow?

It’s no surprise that the number one New Year’s resolution once again is to lose weight. Here’s the bottom line: diet and lifestyle changes often go out the window when you’re on the road. So the key is to learn how to adopt new travel behaviors that just might improve your wellness on the road and at home.

Chris Merrill on KOGO 600 interviews Erica Bohm of Healthy Dining about keeping your New Years diet resolutions. They discuss how dining out does not have to be an exception to your New Years' diet plans - on the contrary, it can be a great way to find excellent, healthy meals.

The 2013 MUFSO SuperShow in Dallas earlier this month provided the latest in nutrition-related trends, as well as how restaurants are benefiting with bottom line results as they transition to healthier cuisine.

Driven by pressures like consumer demand and looming federal regulations that will require them to post calorie counts on menus, restaurant chains around the country are adding more nutritious choices and shrinking portion sizes. The smaller portions, which are not necessarily cheaper, are the first step toward reversing the practice of piling more food on a plate than anyone needs in a single meal, a trend that began nearly three decades ago.

Pita Pit has partnered with HEALTHY DINING, a company that has analyzed thousands of menu items for nutrient content, to provide consumers with simpler solutions and healthy choices when dining out, Peter Riggs, VP of Brand Promotion for Pita Pit, said in a company press release.